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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/korniloff-and-kerensky-0qnvf0t50


september 11, 1917

Korniloff and Kerensky

The tragedy of Russia is nearing its climax. On Saturday General Korniloff, the Commander-in-Chief, requested M Kerensky, the Prime Minister, to hand over to him all civil and military powers. M Kerensky responded by ordering General Korniloff to transfer the supreme command to General Vladislas Napoleonovitch Klembovsky. He has declared a “state of war” in Petrograd and the surrounding district, and says that General Korniloff will be “punished for treachery”.
The news will be received with profound sorrow in this country. The saddest feature of the situation is that M Kerensky and General Korniloff are both patriots, and both have the welfare of Russia deeply at heart. M Kerensky made a strong impression upon popular feeling in Great Britain because his aims were evidently sincere and selfless, and because from the very first he has recognized that Germany is the foe of freedom and has strenuously sought to continue the fight against her. Yet to onlookers it is equally plain that General Korniloff shares to the full the desire to save Russia from German domination. He is no “traitor”, and we believe him to be a modest, unambitious, and earnest soldier whose one aim is to rescue Russia from the plight into which she has fallen. If his ultimatum to the Petrograd authorities was tantamount to a claim of dictatorship, it was evidently because he felt that no alternative was left. M Kerensky has failed to restore order and stability in the Army because his Provisional Government has been at the beck and call of the Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Delegates, whose pernicious influence has almost brought Russia to ruin.
While the Central Executive Committee continues to share in a dual control Russia can never recover. By finally throwing in his lot with these garrulous and obstructive bodies M Kerensky has made an irrevocable breach with General Korniloff and all who side with him. The committees will never save Russia, and in a very short time they will wreck the Revolution if they are not deprived of power to interfere. The outlook is very dark, and affects the war on every front; even in the most favourable circumstances the revival of Russia’s military efficiency is bound to be remote.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-09-09/register/dismal-petrograd-outlook-hhvmmmlrn

september 9, 1917

Dismal Petrograd outlook

The weather has changed. Summer has vanished, and the gloomy sky, heavy clouds, and drenching rain are a fit accompaniment to the gloomy news from the front. From refugees from Riga I gather that the final blow was completely unexpected. On August 31, Riga wore its usual aspect. Next morning the town was subjected to a severe bombardment but, notwithstanding the numerous fires which broke out, the population remained calm. Shops selling food remained open till midnight, when the town realized that the Russians were retreating. A Lett [Latvian] who arrived yesterday told me: “With the dawn the Germans intensified their fire. Smoke clouds drifted over the city, the Germans making these a cover for building pontoon bridges across the Dvina. About 4 o’clock the enemy must have tried chemical shells, for the town was covered in black smoke which added to the terror. I was wondering what to do when I heard that the Russians were in full retreat. I decided to attempt to escape. My intention was to reach the station, but it had been destroyed. Conditions became awful with the deafening explosions, suffocating smoke, burning houses, dead and wounded in the streets, smashed cabs and dead horses, and huge holes in the roads. It took me two hours to reach the Alexander-Thor goods station, where I found a train already crowded with refugees. A shell fell quite close, but we were lucky enough to escape injury.”
Events on the front now bring Petrograd within the zone of war operations, though there is no possibility of the Germans reaching the capital this season. The city remains calm — too calm, perhaps. Steps are being taken to close kinemas and all other places of amusement except the theatres, the tramway service is to be decreased, and the use of electricity is to be controlled, and schools are to be used as hospitals. It is hoped by these measures to make the city sufficiently uncomfortable to drive out all who are not kept here by the most pressing business. The only hope of getting through the winter is decreasing the population by every means at the disposal of the Government. There is enough food in the city for immediate necessities, but the provisioning committees are unable to obtain supplies of grain in anything like the needful quantities.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-09-08/register/american-hospitals-bombed-lz7nznsjj

september 8, 1917

American hospitals bombed

The Germans persist in their infamous policy of night raids on hospitals, which prisoners confess to be deliberate. In one of their latest raids they selected a series of hospitals near the coast, of which two are American. They dropped three bombs on the Harvard Hospital, which has been doing most excellent work. One officer of the American Army Medical Corps was killed and three wounded. Five American members of the staff were also wounded, besides 10 patients, two of the latter having since died. It must be clearly understood that the Germans do not merely not seek to avoid hospitals in their night raids. They purposely search them out, and travel considerable distances to bomb them.
The last two nights we have again had thunderstorms and rain, and today a thick white mist, with which we have grown too familiar in Flanders, is again all over the country, making aeroplane work and observation of any kind very difficult. While there has been no movement of any magnitude, two small operations by Canadians near Lens, and English troops north-east of Ypres, have improved our positions locally by giving us some enemy strong points. In each case the German losses seem to have been considerable for the size of the operation, and we have taken some 30 prisoners.
In spite of not too favourable conditions the artillery has been very active in the last 36 hours, our shelling at certain places and periods being very heavy. I have more than once spoken of the excellence of our counter-battery work with the help of aeroplane observation and, though the Germans seem able to produce new guns to take the place of those we knock out, evidence accumulates of their great anxiety to economize their guns. A prisoner’s letter tells how the Germans rush guns up in the night, fire a few rounds, and withdraw them again. We also hear that German batteries have orders to evacuate their positions as speedily as possible when our guns open fire on them. Also they are, apparently, taking to disposing their guns in batteries in fantastic formations instead of the normal grouping, with very wide intervals between and in other than a straight line. This is done purely in hopes of avoiding our gunfire.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-09-07/register/the-sound-of-gunfire-mw23r6bpz

september 7, 1917

The sound of gunfire

To the Editor of The Times
Sir, Reading the correspondence in your columns in the light of my own experience, I am convinced that there are two distinct sensations; one, the air concussion of the explosion of the charge from the gun; the other the earth concussion when the shell thumps on the earth. There seems to be strong reason for believing that the latter sensation is carried the further. I am even so bold as to suggest that the facts stated by Mr Sleggs, in his letter in your issue of the 31st ult, tend to confirm the theory on which he throws a doubt. He distinguishes between two sounds heard behind the guns in Flanders, the one resembling a heavy blow as of a stone-hammer within the earth “that makes itself felt rather than heard” the other a resonant “crump”, louder and more obvious, transmitted by the air. I can lay no claim to any scientific knowledge, but I have, my doctor tells me, a perfect and unblemished ear. On the hills near Crowborough I have observed what is undoubtedly the result of gunfire at the front. I have observed it also near Maidstone on the occasion of a great offensive. It has been recorded at various spots round London. I have picked it most distinctly on the recent offensive in Flanders at two enclosed spots in Battersea Park, one of them the beautiful “old English garden” somewhat disfigured this year by a rather snobbish growth of vegetables. The “thuds” could be distinctly sensed in spite of the confused sounds of distant traffic. I found the park keeper, who is there in the quiet hours, was quite familiar with the phenomenon. I have heard the sound of artillery practice in different parts of the country, and this distant rumble, very like far-off thunder, is a sound quite distinct.
On the still winter’s day of Queen Victoria’s funeral I was on Wimbledon Common, where the long “roll” of the guns in the Solent was clearly audible. This again was a sound bearing no resemblance to the short quick “thud” that is now “felt rather than heard” in England. Is it not a plausible theory that the terrible thumps on the earth by modern high-explosive shells, which make “craters”, can be felt through the earth to a distance far greater than air concussions are carried?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
studiosus audiendi.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-09-06/register/the-moonlight-air-raid-km9h7nfds

september 6, 1917

The moonlight air raid

It cannot be said that Londoners were unprepared for Tuesday night’s air raid. The sorties towards the coast on previous nights showed that the Germans had realized the possibility of raids during the full moon. During the evening there was talk in trains and tubes of a raid, and people on the way home from the theatres discussed the subject. Indeed, when the theatregoers were on their way home the first sounds of firing came from the outskirts of London. Watched from a high point in Hampstead, which overlooks the whole city as far as the Tower Bridge and the Crystal Palace, the raid was spectacular and particularly noisy.
The first intimation was given by the sound of distant gunfire. At about 11.30pm the droning of enemy aeroplane engines could be heard. Many people thought that Zeppelins were approaching, for the raiders were big machines, probably Gothas. The Gotha’s twin engines, with cylinders firing twice as many to the minute as a single-engine machine, make a droning sound quite unlike the machine-gun effect of a single rotary or vertical motor.
When the first plane showed up anti-aircraft guns came into action. That the targets were very high was evident, for it was possible to count five or six seconds between the report of the gun and the time when the flash of the bursting shells could be seen. British aeroplanes went up in large numbers, but with little success, for one of the chief guides as to the locality of the bombing machines is denied a defending pilot, in that he cannot hear the enemy engine over the noise of his own.
At the first sound of gunfire many people rushed for shelter. Those nearer the tubes went to the stations in all stages of undress and were conveyed in the lifts to the underground platforms. Others, infinitely more foolish, stood in clusters in the open streets and watched the bombardment. Guests in evening dress just returned from the theatres, others in scanty attire with dressing gowns and overcoats over their night clothes, streamed downstairs, where they waited until the last raider had disappeared.
Many theatre-goers on their way home, noticing the pathetic crowds of women and children on the stations underground, wisely waited below. Stations on the Hampstead line were very congested.